The grain going forward to a different use.

There is regret. Always, there is regret.

But it is better that our lives unloose,

As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,

Break from an estuary with their courses set,

And waving part, and waving drop from sight.

XXV

Morning has spread again

Morning has spread again

Through every street,

And we are strange again;

For should we meet

How can I tell you that

Last night you came

Unbidden, in a dream?

And how forget

That we had worn down love good-humouredly,

Talking in fits and starts

As friends, as they will be

Who have let passion die within their hearts.

Now, watching the red east expand,

I wonder love can have already set

In dreams, when we’ve not met

More times than I can number on one hand.

XXVI

This is the first thing

This is the first thing

I have understood:

Time is the echo of an axe

Within a wood.

XXVII

Heaviest of flowers, the head

Heaviest of flowers, the head

Forever hangs above a stormless bed;

Hands that the heart can govern

Shall be at last by darker hands unwoven;

Every exultant sense

Unstrung to silence—

The sun drift away.

And all the memories that best

Run back beyond this season of unrest

Shall lie upon the earth

That gave them birth.

Like fallen apples, they will lose

Their sweetness at the bruise,

And then decay.

XXVIII

Is it for now or for always

Is it for now or for always,

The world hangs on a stalk?

Is it a trick or a trysting-place,

The woods we have found to walk?

Is it a mirage or miracle,

Your lips that lift at mine:

And the suns like a juggler’s juggling-balls,

Are they a sham or a sign?

Shine out, my sudden angel,

Break fear with breast and brow,

I take you now and for always,

For always is always now.

XXIX

Pour away that youth

Pour away that youth

That overflows the heart

Into hair and mouth;

Take the grave’s part,

Tell the bone’s truth.

Throw away that youth

That jewel in the head

That bronze in the breath;

Walk with the dead

For fear of death.

XXX

So through that unripe day you bore your head

So through that unripe day you bore your head,

And the day was plucked and tasted bitter,

As if still cold among the leaves. Instead,

It was your severed image that grew sweeter,

That floated, wing-stiff, focused in the sun

Along uncertainty and gales of shame

Blown out before I slept. Now you are one

I dare not think alive: only a name

That chimes occasionally, as a belief

Long since embedded in the static past.

Summer broke and drained. Now we are safe.

The days lose confidence, and can be faced

Indoors. This is your last, meticulous hour,

Cut, gummed; pastime of a provincial winter.

XXXI

The North Ship
Legend

I saw three ships go sailing by,

Over the sea, the lifting sea,